“When a visitor is forced to read a headline about some offer they have no interest in from a person or company they’re not all that familiar with when all they really wanted was the specific information they came for your popups are doing the opposite of what they should be doing.”

Hence, if a user is over-faced with irrelevant information, they’re going to bounce and pogo-stick to the next search result.

The best thing to do is to keep any ads, widgets and pop-ups to an absolute minimum, so that they don’t draw attention away from your product or content.

Similarly, too many calls to action on one page can overwhelm and distract visitors.

There should only be one, clear CTA. On a product page it might look something like this:

There’s one clear message here, which represents the site’s goal—to get you to buy the item.

Within blog content, your CTA might look like this:

There’s just one relevant offer to accompany the content.

And like with this example, you should take user intent into account.

The visitor has come to the page for information, thus the CTA is related to them getting more information (via a webinar).

If the intent is to make a purchase, then the CTA should be about making a purchase, as in the prior example.

This adds to the relevancy of a page, thus making it less likely the visitor will leave.

4. Clean Up Your Internal Links

Internal linking is vital for SEO.

But don’t go crazy with this—make sure you only add internal links to your content when they offer genuine value to users.

For instance, in an article about building directory backlinks, you might link to another piece of content about local search, where it’s highly relevant and useful to the reader:

When your readers click on a link for a product recommendation or helpful resource, they expect to be taken to that page—they don’t want to be slapped with a 404 error page.

That certainly amounts to a negative user experience.

Hence, you also need to go through your links with a fine-toothed comb to make sure they’re all working.

To check for broken internal links, head to the “Index Coverage” section of the new Google Search Console:

Here you’ll be able to see site errors and warnings, including 404 errors.

Once you’ve gone to your site and fixed the error (usually just double-checking the URL and replacing it if necessary), mark it as fixed within Google so that your URL will be crawled again.

Keep your overall internal linking structure logical and useful, and people will be more likely to stick around on your site.

Final Thoughts on Bringing Down Your Bounce Rate

As you’ve probably guessed by now, the key to reducing bounce rate comes down to relevance and a positive user experience.

If your site is well-designed, optimized for mobile and easy to navigate, visitors should have no reason to leave.

As long as the content they see is also relevant to their initial search and reflects their intent.

So, don’t be like a catfish on Tinder.

Get to work on making your site match up to your searchers’ needs.

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Written By

Kelly wears a few hats, as a Marketing and SaaS Writer, Content Marketer and Link Builder. Her far-reaching knowledge and passion for all things digital are second to none. Visit her blog at copygoals.com.